A Life less Ordinary
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: Next gen laughfest. Starring Al who's convinced he's going to die, James who's following in his namesakes' footsteps, Nirvana seeking Lily, Shakespeare-quoting Rose, her bodyguard aka boyfriend and many others...
1. OWL Results

_**A Life less Ordinary**_

**Disclaimer: ****The ****Slytherin Code of Conduct**** is part of the story ****An Altered Destiny: The Beginning, if there is one ****by the awesomely-talented ****Insane Slytherin****. ****A Sarcastic Git's Golden Rules at Hogwarts ****belongs to the brilliant ****Twisted Biscuit. **

**Warning: The current crop of Weasleys are all sexual deviants/sex maniacs/asexual. **

**Dedicated: To my brilliant and extraordinarily patient beta, Desiqtie! **

It was a swelteringly lovely July day and Albus Severus Potter knew instinctively, on waking up, that he was going to die within a few hours. Being an intelligent and astute Slytherin, well-acquainted with the contents of the **Slytherin Code of Conduct** – Rule Number 14: _Paranoia: The sure way to survive _– he proceeded to howl, "I am going to die!" At the top of his lungs of course. Al liked to make a thorough job of anything he put his mind to.

Unfortunately, being a Potter and roommate of the most un-morning-friendly boy in the history of time (during the summer holidays only), he was tackled and punched thoroughly by his older brothers before he could chant the refrain that would alert the world of his impending death, a ninth time. James Potter also liked to make a thorough job of anything he put his mind to.

"WHAT THE RUDDY HELL IS UP WITH YOU?" Young James – who was not so young, considering that he was several months over age – screamed, attempting to attack his brother with anything that came at hand. Unfortunately, the only weapons that _were_ at hand were several fat, fluffy pillows – armaments that could cause virtually no damage to his prey. "YOU…"

"I am going to _die_!" Al squeaked, dodging out of range of the evil pillowy missiles. "Today! Within a few hours! Sympathy, man, I require a bit of sym… oof." He toppled off his bed as a particularly well-aimed pillow hit in the chest. James Potter was not one of the most aggressive Beaters at Hogwarts for nothing.

James bounded from his own bed to his younger brother's in a single bounce and proceeded to jump on it, in a victory dance which made him look ten years younger than his real age. "Take that you…" while he fumbled for a suitably unpleasant word – bouncing on the bed all the while, of course – the door slid open a crack. James stopped fumbling for an insult that would rise to the occasion and looked at it concernedly. Al popped up from underneath the bed – where he'd been cowering – and followed his brother's example.

The door slid open a crack.

And another crack.

And another crack.

And a…

"Oh get in here already, you pugnacious varmint!" James howled. Over the summer he'd been expanding his dictionary – for the purpose of writing more intellectual letters to a certain female bookworm – with mixed results. "You pulchritudinous, anachronistic, Nihilistic…"

The door slid open the final crack and a vision in white entered. Hauntingly tragic yet exquisite music began to play, flowers shimmered and began materializing in the air and then floated down gracefully to the floor, arranging themselves in beautiful contours. Soft light focused on the radiant specter who glided, like a moonbeam, into the room.

Literally.

"You know Lily," Al said seriously, "Mum and Dad will be pretty mad if they catch you using magic like that again. You're not supposed to, during the hols."

Lily Potter, her ivory white skin sparkling (thanks to the _Shimmering Summer Surprises _range of beauty products), her loose, magnolia-hued robes flowing elegantly around her petite frame, her carefully dyed snowy white hair framing her delicate face just looked at him. Through ice-grey contact lenses no less. She looked and looked and looked and kept on looking until both Al and James began squirming.

Finally she said, her voice surprisingly deep for such a fragile-looking fourteen-year-old girl, "I shun convention." She had the air of one bestowing a favor – no, a blessing – on the world with that single line. It seemed to carry the weight of the universe behind it, all the knowledge and wisdom bequeathed on lowly humanity, throughout the ages, in those three words.

"Oh," Al said after a decent interim. "Oh."

"You un-honorificabilitudinitatibus goat!" James began screaming again. "You nitrophenylenediamine-hued Rottweiler! You…" It was unclear as to whom these words were addressed.

"Silence," Lily said as calmly as if she was the Supreme Commander of the Universe, and therefore in charge of all the inhabitants of said universe. Then, she calmly glided – Lily made a point of always gliding – towards Al's bed, sashayed onto it, her white skirts swirling and slapped James thoroughly on both cheeks.

All the Potter children were very thorough by nature – it probably came from their father's side of the family. Defeating a crazy – albeit incompetent – Dark Lord certainly needed a meticulous nature. Or maybe it came from their mother's side. Winning the hand of Harry Mobbed-by-Females Potter probably needed more diligence than getting rid of an albino senior citizen in desperate need of a nose job.

"What was that for?" James demanded indignantly, while Lily helped Al back onto the bed.

"Penitence," Lily said quietly, gazing up at through icy eyes that smoldered. This, in the case of anybody else, would have been impossible. Icy eyes smoldering? Harry Potter had made the impossible possible countless times. His daughter was gliding in his footsteps – though more gracefully, of course. Then she turned, solicitously, to her other brother and began stroking his hand with the air of a professional therapist. "What seems to be the problem, my dear child?"

"He's going to die," James said sulkily, before Al could open his mouth. "Good riddance too."

Lily sighed deeply. Her look clearly said that she knew the world was a depraved place – quite unsuited for astral souls like herself – but that she would bravely soldier on this in sinful universe, aiding the distressed souls who sought her spiritual counsel. "You must seek Nirvana."

"Sorry?" Al said. "Do you mean Veena Thomas?"

"She's mine," James growled before anything more could be said. "Back off."

"Yours?" Al asked, puzzled. "Didn't she once say she'd rather go out with the Giant Squid than you?"

"I don't care how devastatingly attractive the Squid is," James snapped, leaping off the bed to the floor. James liked leaping – it helped show off his beautifully-sculpted legs to potential mates. They were twin works of art, his legs were. "She's mine, and that's final."

"A myrrh-scented mignonette blossoms not in the golden halcyon," Lily announced severely. "Seek not retribution upon the dawn-hued chalice." And she frowned disapprovingly.

James stared at her for a moment and then threw up his hands exasperatedly. "You two are freaks," he said bitterly, hopping off the bed and striding gloomily towards the open window. "God, why do I have to share housing space with you two freaks?" He swung his long legs over the ledge, grabbed the frame for support and then jumped down, landing as lightly as a cat on the ground beneath.

"Destitute soul," Lily sighed deeply, looking very disturbed. "He would do well to dwell on nobler thoughts." Then she turned expectantly to Al, whose hand she was still clutching in a death grip – despite his attempts to pry his fingers from her claws. "Let us not reside on so mordant a topic as our beloved brother's spiritual demise. What sins have you committed, my dear child?"

"Er… none."

"What vices are you addicted to?"

"Erm… not too many."

Without warning, Lily burst into a flood of tears that would have done Moaning Myrtle credit. "Iniquitous sheep!" she screamed, sweeping off from the bed – in moments of turmoil, Lily swept instead of glided – and falling with poise, like a magnolia blossom, to the floor. "Thou hast strayed far from the promised land of milk-and-honey!" she moaned from the floor, her hands clasped together. "Thou shalt never journey into the land of platinum-coated truth! Ah, woe is me – two brothers lost! Woe, woe to this luminous world! Forsaken all! _Forsaken…_"

Slapping his hands over his ears – Lily's voice could turn as strident as her Grandma Molly's in times of crisis – Al stumbled out of the room and broke into a run when he reached the stairs. Lily's mournful, shrill voice floated from behind him and he knew that she too was chasing him. Clanging down the stairs, he threw himself into the kitchen at a breakneck speed, inches from Lily's grasp.

"Morning, son."

"_Forsaken! Lost! Desti- _eh."

"Hello Lilabee."

Lily stopped at the threshold of the kitchen, took one look at her father – half-enshrouded behind his paper – and at her quarry, practically cowering behind me. "Good morning, _mon pater_," she said carefully, scowling angrily at Al. "I bid adieu to you for a moment – I must touch up my make-up now."

"Not at eight in the morning?" Harry Potter asked wearily, finally looking up from his paper. "Do we have to go over this every single day, Lil? No more…"

"Beauty is skin deep," Lily said coldly, "Beauty is deceitful. It is my duty to inform the populace of the concept of Nirvana." And with that, she swept out of the kitchen.

"Thank God," Al muttered, dropping into a seat next to his father. "Dad, I'm going to die today."

"Hmm? Too bad. Victoire and Oriole are coming over for lunch today, by the way."

"Dad!" Al practically shouted. "I am going to _die _today! Die! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"I said too bad, didn't I? And by the way, could you please tell James to stop ogling Victoire – Oriole'll be jealous."

"Your favorite son! The one with the gorgeous eyes! Don't I count more than a lunch with two lesbians?" Al spluttered.

Harry finally looked down from his newspaper, frowning. "Albus Severus Potter, do we have to go over your issues with homophobia once again?"

"I am _not _homophobic!" Al howled. "That's Grandma Molly!"

"Your inherited issues, then…"

"_Does no one in this family care that I am going to die today?_!" Al screamed, jumping up from his chair and tugging at his jet black hair, his gorgeous eyes glittering in rage. James had the legs in the family, Al the eyes and Lily the dysfunctional personality that her father would have had if the world actually followed rules.

At that moment, Ginevra Potter swept into the room like a diminutive thundercloud. Time, a husband who gave a damn about her, a dysfunctional extended family and three crazy brats had had no effect on her gorgeous, snog-doll-esque beauty. Her long hair was as red and swishy, her brown eyes as sparkly and empty of emotion, her figure as voluptuous, her jokes as inane and her temper as unmanageable as they had been when she was fifteen.

And today she was in a bad mood.

"Where's the coffee?" she growled menacingly, her trim figure sheathed in an obscenely tight, lacy negligee.

Harry, who had been too busy ogling her, didn't hear her the first time. Which was nothing unusual, seeing that he'd been effectively ignoring whatever she'd said and ogling her body for over twenty years.

"Well?" she snapped, taking a step closer towards the table. "I asked you a question."

"What?" Harry asked distractedly, his eyes quickly traveling up from the more attractive parts of her body to her belligerent eyes. "Did you say anything, sweetheart?"

Ginny's face quickly turned red in fury – she'd never attended anger management classes, even though it had been suggested by many people (Zacharias Smith had been the first one). "You idiot!" she screamed. "You never care about me! You never listen to me! I despise you! I loathe you! I know you were thinking about one of those slutty bimbos down at the Ministry – that's what you're like every single fucking day! Even in bed, that's why the sex hasn't been so…"

Al didn't need to hear anything else. He bolted out of the room, his mother's screams and the lower, more placating murmurs of his father following him down the hallway. It was nice to know more about your parents. Just not about their sex lives, no matter how racy it might have been. He shuddered as he remembered the last time he'd entered their bedroom (six years ago), searching for a book. He'd discovered – among other things – a crate packed with bottles of chocolate syrup, boxes marked _Exotic Edible Underwear: Pineapple, Coconut, Mango_, aphrodisiacs, hardcore porn magazines, bejewelled handcuffs, rainbow-hued dildos…

Yeah. He'd been careful never to enter his parents' room after that. He'd been permanently scarred by those memories when he was ten years old.

"I'm going to die today," he moaned, catching sight of Bruno, their adorable Beagle. Bruno barked brightly when he saw Al and lopped towards him, his little pink tongue hanging out excitedly. "Good morning, Bruno," he said, picking up Bruno and walking out of the house, into the sun-drenched garden. "I'm going to die today. Do you know why? The O.W.L results are coming in and I'm going to fail anything and Grandma Molly will die of a heart attack and James is going to die he'll be so happy I've failed everything and then I'll have to work the streets as a prostitute to earn a living. Will you be sad when I'm gone?"

Bruno barked brightly. That was all Bruno ever did – bark brightly.

"Yeah, thanks a lot," Al said sourly.

"_Et tu, Brute_?" a voice sang. "_From off a hill whose concave womb reworded, a plaintful story from a sist'ring vale, mspirits t'attend this double voice accorded and down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale_." The voice was low and melodious, the words liltingly lovely and the tone one of plaintive melancholy. By all rights, Al ought to have been weeping. Or sobbing. Or crying. Or, at the very least if he was not a weepy person in general – very likely considering his father had married his mother solely because of her body, her status as the only female Weasley and her non-weepiness stoicitude – he should applauded and demanded more.

Instead he just burst into guffaws of laughter.

A pretty girl – just pretty, as she liked to be called, not lovely or cute or sweet, just pretty suited her fine – with shoulder-length sorrel-colored hair and sparkling glaucous-hued eyes emerged into view. One of Rose Weasley's favorite pastimes happened to be browsing through pages of wall-color shades. What other people called purple, Rose called ianthine. She was frequently heard to comment that knowing the difference between luteolous and luteous helped one in advanced studies of ethical philosophy.

"Escaping from Aunt Hermione?" Al asked, sprawling on the ground with Bruno in his lap. "How long have you been hiding here?"

"Since four o'clock," Rose said, throwing herself, in a calculatedly languid motion, onto a sun chair. Rose liked being called pretty because she thought it in the best interests of the world to fit as many people as you could into neatly-labeled stereotypes – it saved you the bother of researching more deeply into different people and finding out about their motivations, aspirations, points of views… you'd only land up with ethical ambiguity if you delved so far and so deep, which would lead to the collapse of the judicial world and therefore, utter chaos.

Apart from studying the names of different colors, Rose liked to read Machiavelli, Grism and Nietzsche in her spare time.

"Coward," Al said simply. "By the way, do you know that I'm going to die today?"

"You're always dying," Rose complained, looking at him disapprovingly as though she considered it most ungallant of him to die every other day. "James never seems to die and Lilabee's always talking about death, but never gets around to going the full way. The world would be a more salubrious place if you three would just get over and finish dying one of these ways. I'm sure Auntie Gin wouldn't mind."

"Nobody in this whole extended family cares about me," Al said, pouting and stroking his puppy. "It seems like all of you actually _want _me to die. Hrrmph."

"James and Lil inherit more money if you're out of the way," Rose said absentmindedly, examining her legs. "They'll also be able to descend into the deepest circles of hell without you pestering them all the way down to blackest iniquity, y'know."

Al blinked. "Is that a quote?"

"Real life, baby," Rose said, now examining her fingernails, painted amaranthine and celeste. "Honestly, they're named after your dead grandparents – you can't reasonably expect anything but incest with that naming scheme."

"They're your cousins too," Al said patiently.

"All my cousins are equally dysfunctional," Rose said dismissively. "There's Vic who dumps the sweetest guy in the whole wide world for a bitch who spreads her legs to anyone – _anyone _– who asks nicely enough. Then there's our resident necrophilic, Fred. And don't forget Dominique who thinks everyone wants to shag her – God, she's only one-eighth Veela anyway – and Roxanne who wants to shag everyone and Sigurd who's already started experimenting with animals and…"

"Not _everyone _in our family is a sexual deviant," Al interrupted, squirming.

"Of course not," Rose said, her tone reeking of condescension. "They're either a sexual deviant or sex maniacs or asexual."

"And I guess that means that you aren't part of the family?" Al demanded.

"Hell, of course I am," Rose said indignantly, "I mean I'm going out with Scorpius aren't I? We've got this whole Romeo-and-Juliet star-crossed lovers' thing going on, and Rose Granger-Weasley-Malfoy is one of the sickest, most twisted names you can ever come across and imagine what names we'll have to think of if you ever have kids… how's that for sexual deviation?"

"For the last time," Al snapped, "That does not count as sexual deviation! Uncle Ron _likes _Scorpius and Mrs Malfoy loves your taste in colors, so you _don't _have a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque romance. Yes, I know this is school but you've only been going out with him for two months, which does _not _qualify as a long-term relationship. And you're sixteen years and one month by the way too and your mother'll probably kill you if you think of having kids now, so naming them is out of the question, too. And if you want to get married, you don't have to use all three surnames – one works just fine."

"Well, I'm not the one who's taken out a five-years' subscription to _Voluptuous Veela Vixens_, you freaky sex maniac!" Rose snapped. "You were getting high on porn when you were twelve!"

"I was not!" Al protested, his cheeks as red as his mother's hair. "And I have better sense than to pretend that I'm bisexual when I'm clearly three-hundred-percent heterosexual and ogle every single male specimen who passes me!"

"I'm a Ravenclaw!" Rose howled. "_Inquisitive_! My mind works on a whole different plane! What if I _am_ actually bisexual? Hmm?"

"Then you'd actually check out _girls _instead of bitching about how hideous they all look!"

"It's a façade! All that sexual tension in the girls' loo!"

"What?" Al screamed. "_What_? Why the heck are you going out with Scorpius Look-at-me-I'm-a-Huge-Muscular-Manly-Beater Malfoy then? He doesn't even shave his legs for Merlin's sake – they're forests, I tell you! Forests of blondness!"

"At least he isn't effeminate or metrosexual!" Rose screeched, sounding very much like her mother. "At least I know he _loves _me – he beat up Gary and Raoul and Jon for my sake! That's true love, I tell you, true love!"

"You sound like a sixteen-year-old girl." And with that statement, James Potter sauntered into the garden, freshly groomed and smiling, clearly pleased to see his favorite cousin. Sure, Victoire and Dominique were hot, but they were, well, pretty terrifying – even when they were in a good mood. Rose was too petite and fragile-looking to be intimidating, in _any_ situation. Which was probably the reason she'd hired a bodyguard aka boyfriend to bash up anyone who annoyed her. "'Lo Rosie – don't tell me you're de-stressing over at our house."

"Well I am," Rose said, settling back comfortably into the sun chair. "Dad had to sedate Mum yesterday to get her off my case – God, you'd think _her _O.W.L results were coming out, instead of mine."

James sat down next to her, after making a face at Al. "Aren't you even nervous about the results? Al here thinks he's going to die today."

"Hell no," Rose said, looking astonished at the very suggestion that she should be nervous about the fallout of the most important – and fate-deciding – exam she'd ever taken in her life. "I've got Mum's brains and Dad's ingenuity and I'm hotter than both of them added and squared. Why should I be nervous, Jamie?" Rose and her Uncle Charlie were the only people in the universe who were permitted to call seventeen-year-old James Potter 'Jamie'. They were the only people whose opinions had any influence whatsoever on him, too.

"There's this little thing called arrogance, you know…"

"_Vanity's_ a fucking sin, Jamie – arrogance is just the weapon of the fittest. Darwin's theory and all."

Al stretched out his legs, bored. "How's Hue?"

Rose had nicknamed her younger brother Hugo Hue when she'd been seven – and had just recently discovered the joys of browsing through shade cards. He'd been three then, and the nickname had just stuck – Hue reminded you of cheerful baby ducks in colorful caps while Hugo reminded you of French barons with curling moustaches and sinister leers.

"He's still trying to figure out if it'll be incest if he marries his fair Delia," Rose said, her delicate mouth crinkling in scorn. "I mean your cousin, Adelaide. He calls her Delia all the time of course."

"Pretty profound for a kid who's just going onto to second year this September," James said thoughtfully. "Is it incest by the way?"

"Can't be," Al said, frowning reflectively. "Adelaide's Uncle Dudley's daughter and Hugo's Uncle Ron's son but they're no relation to eachother so that makes it… ARGH!!" Like a rocket, Al flew out of his comfortable seat on the ground, Bruno spilling out of his lap, and dashed, through the window, into the house. The reason was quickly apparent – silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky were three owls, soaring towards them.

"One for Al, Mum and Dad probably sent on my results here and I asked Scorp to send me a letter about his results as soon as possible – blimey, isn't it weird that they've all arrived at once?"

"Something bad is going to happen," James said gravely. "Coincidences like this are always omens of evil – Professor Firenze once told us that." James' favorite subject – and pretty much the only one which he took seriously – happened to be Divination.

"If you take that subject seriously, you may as well give up all chance of credibility and walk around in a t-shirt saying 'Doomsayer'," Rose sighed exasperatedly, quoting the anonymous Sarcastic Git of Hogwarts who routinely posted lists of golden rules on the walls. "Of course," she said thoughtfully, "It might mean that Al really _has_ failed every single subject."

James smiled brightly. "I hope so," he said, his voice reeking of sincerity, "Then he'll have to kill himself and I can safely indulge in incest with my little sister." It was impossible to doubt that he meant every word he'd said.

Rose blinked dazedly at him for a moment. Then the garden rang with her shrill scream, "WHAT?!"

**A/N: ****Lily Potter is based off one of my cousins (she just has a green fetish instead of a white one). No wonder random strangers have come up to me countless times, demanding why there isn't a special ward in the mental asylum reserved for me – it must run in the genes. And yes, I detest and despise the new extended Weasley family tree as much as you do. If you are at a loss of things to review about – most people generally are, and therefore don't review, which makes me very sad – you can answer these questions:-**

**Is this story good enough to be continued?**

**Which one of the characters did you like more?**

**Were they too dysfunctional to be taken seriously?**

**Are you mad at me for ****all the Ginny bashing? I can't help hating her, so sorry to anyone who likes her! **

**Btw, has anyone noticed that I've taken into account many of the next-gen fanon clichés? WimpySlytherin!Al, Jock!James who's favorite cousin is Rose, Ravenclaw!Rose who dates Scorpius…**

_**To everyone who's read Shades of Black: **_**I've added a new Chapter 2 and am currently editing the first twenty chapters, so updates will be slow for a while. Also, I'm thinking about changing the title – any suggestions? **


	2. Color Me

**Color Me**

_That's right - you and your siblings are named after the three main players in a hideous love triangle, all of whom were dead by their mid-thirties._

**Ferafestiva, LJ**

"Woe is me! Woe is me!" wept Albus Severus Potter, more commonly known to the world of Hogwarts as Al the Pansy. "The snow glistens on the cobblestones and the crows cackle in their rookeries. All the world is bright and merry, sated with Yuletide glee, save for me, most wretched of mortals. This very night shall the prefects and professors find me with a crimson dagger pressed tight against my scorned bosom – let them find me and let my libidinous brother who has robbed the love of my life from my arms repent!"

And he began to sob and weep. Copiously.

Just like the broom closet and the Astronomy Tower were ideal hotspots for young students in love, the Quidditch changing rooms and the Great Hall were ideally suited for all jilted lovers to sit and moan. Which was were Al was at the moment, lamenting about the state – or lack thereof – of his love-life to his best friend, Scorpius Malfoy – aka his caretaker.

"Is that a poem?" Scorpius asked interestedly, turning towards his 'best friend' – whom he regarded more in the light of a defenseless, weak little kitten who had to be looked after and protected for his own good. "_The snow glistens on the cobblestones_… sounds pretty."

"It is a rhapsody of grief," Al said with as much dignity as he could muster (wondering vaguely what the word 'rhapsody' meant). He cast a withering look of scorn at the thick-skinned boy who didn't mind being referred to as Scorpy even at fifteen before adding, "An oration of lament delivered by a young man stricken by unrequited love." He spoke of it as though it was a disease, whose medicine he didn't have enough money to buy.

"Talk about unrequited love," Scorpius muttered distractedly, gazing across the Hall at a petite, red-haired Ravenclaw who was making her way over to them. In her customary fashion – which was 'shunning the shallow dictates of fashion', at the moment – Rose Weasley was wearing a brown jumper pattered with orange stars, a pin-striped ash-grey miniskirt and high-heeled, thigh-length leather boots. This less-than-stellar outfit was accessorized by a soft, lime-green beret, a chunky red belt and fuchsia silk gloves. Even Fleur Delacour-Weasley would never have been able to pull it off. Rose looked perfectly terrifying – in the worst possible sense of that word.

"_Bon jour_, Al, Scorpy," she sang, stooping to kiss both of them on each cheek in the French fashion. Scorpius sighed dreamily and lightly touched the portion of skin her sanctified lips had pressed, a puppy-dog expression on his face. "_Vous semblez triste. __Quel est le problème__?_" demanded Rose whose bad habits included abusing the French language with her atrocious pronunciation and believing that she – like her cousin Lily – had it in her to solve people's problems.

"What?" Al asked irritably as Rose took off her beret and gloves and tossed them at Scorpius. "Why can't you speak in English like a normal person?"

"Because I'm not normal," she said seriously, sitting down next to him – to Scorpius' grief.

"No," Al couldn't resist saying, "You're subnormal."

Rose shot him a look that would have made her grandmother Molly, the Queen of Disturbing Passive-Aggressive Behavioral Traits, proud. "It is a great pity, Albus Severus, that you are not able to carry out a civilized conversation. I mourn for your loss."

"Well if you start off in French – and it's 'vuu' not 'vous', Miss I-Learnt-French-from-a-Dictionary…"

"Let's not change the subject," Rose said hastily. Even Aunt Fleur had despaired over her accent, finally admitting that even she could never teach Rose Weasley French. "I asked you – very politely of course – why you looked so sad. I repeat my question."

"I have every right to be sad," Albus pouted. "James stole my girlfriend."

Rose frowned and ran a finger through her long, ruddy-brown hair. "Al, I am concerned about you. Deeply. You clearly suffer from either schizophrenia or Alzheimer's – a tragic case for one so young, certainly. Let me reinstate this simple fact – you're a speccy midget who half the school thinks is gay. You don't have – and will never have, so long as women have standards – a girlfriend."

"Soulmate," Al corrected her, choosing not to take offence with the magnanimous spirit he had most definitely not inherited from either of his parents or grandparents – James and Lily Potter, Arthur and Molly Weasley and Harry and Ginny were certainly not what you would ever call magnanimous. "My traitorous brother – may he rot in hell – has borne away the fair Gloria, chained her to…"

"Wait!" cried Rose, blinking. "He's got Gloria Mason chained somewhere? Like in bondage? Bloodplay? Oh my god we have to tell a teacher – Vector! We should go up and tell Vector!" Rose had inherited her mother's undying faith in 'the establishment' alongwith the fanciful notion that 'teachers are your friends'. Nothing anyone said could ever convince her that they were all out to use her blood in satanic potions and her body as manure for some of the more deadly plants in the greenhouses.

"It is an _expression_," Al snapped. "A simple turn of phrase! The main thing is that James has, by diabolical means – personally I suspect Amortentia, no girl in her right mind would go out with that toerag –"

But Rose had already heard the word 'expression'. "They make a cute couple don't you think so?" Rose cooed, turning towards Scorpius for affirmation. Scorpius nodded because he would have agreed that Hagrid and the Giant Squid made a cute couple if she said so. He was so deep in love with her that it had already transgressed the stage of 'aww – he loves her, how _adorable_' – his passion for her was now pitiful and pitiable. "Plus," Rose continued, pretending to be oblivious to Scorpius' raging lust, "she's a redhead and if Jamie marries her that'll continue the Potter family tradition and then they'll have two kids and name them Harry and Ginny…"

"Oedipus Complex," Al hissed darkly. "And Miss Gloria is _mine_ as I'll hope you remember, Rose Weasley."

"Excuse me!" Rose cried, looking incredulous and scandalized. "We live in 2022, as I hope _you'll _remember, Albus Potter! The modern age – the age of the empowerment of women, where women are not the toys or playthings of men. Your words belie your chauvinistic mind, the crude labyrinth of supercilious condescension which forms your opinion of women – you should be ashamed of yourself! I'm ashamed of you."

"It's not my fault," Al muttered sulkily, almost under his breath. "My dad treats my mother like a sex toy – what the heck am I supposed to learn?" He sighed and took off his glasses, a troubled expression on his face. "Gloria's going to the Yule Ball with James."

Rose jumped up almost instantly in excitement. "You don't say!" she squealed, forgetting her rambling speech on the empowerment of women and her dignified outrage against Al. "Did you hear about what she's wearing? I thought Wood asked her out – woah, she must really like Jamie to put down our school Champion's request! But then of course Wood and she wouldn't look nice together at all – their hair colors clash. Red and light brown? _Puhlease. _Wood really should think about dying his hair – it doesn't have to match his surname."

"What if the guy you loved had hair that clashed with yours?" Al asked irately. "Would you still love him?"

"No, of course not," Rose said matter-of-factly. "Of course if I loved him I would have advised him to dye his hair – my hair's too pretty to dye." She put her arm around Scorpius's shoulder and said playfully, "That's why I'm going to marry someone who looks like you someday… I'll have pink-haired babies and that's just about the cutest thing ever."

Scorpius looked like he was going to die of delight. Rose, niece of seductive vixens like Fleur and Ginny – who was not so oblivious to the boys who had crushes on her, and there were very surprisingly many of them – had a battle strategy for the Yule Ball. Conquer. Conquer. Conquer. She wanted atleast four partners for the Yule Ball – and if she had to steal other girls' boyfriends, then so be it. In fact she rather looked forward to stealing other girls' boyfriends – all the cute guys were always taken. Scorpius was neither cute nor taken but he would do… he was sweet in a quiet-shy-bodyguard way and Rose was determined to exploit him.

"So," she said teasingly, running her fingers lightly over his arm. "Want to go to the Ball with me?"

Scorpius all but exploded with excitement.

"Great," she smiled, "Great. I'm wearing white – shaded ivory with warm undertones, not magnolia or cream mind you. Be sure to dress accordingly. And bring me a… let's see now, what color… ah yes, carmine-hued corsage. I'll talk to Jamie about Gloria if you like," she offered to Al.

"No thank you," he said frostily. "I can take care of my problems by myself."

Rose raised an eyebrow at him before getting up. "That, I seriously doubt."

**000**

Lily Potter sat huddled on her red-and-gold four-poster. A bundle of letters, addressed to 'The Shrink' had arrived and she was now occupied in the task of answering them. Hogwarts now had a school paper – along with internet access because the internet had invaded every single corner of the earth by 2022, even magical boarding schools – and thirteen-year-old Lily Luna Potter was the unofficial Shrink. She had used her father's political clout, her cousins' popularity – half the school seemed to comprise her cousins – and the power of her eerie ice-grey contact lens to win the job.

_Dear Shrink,_

_My obese, ugly, smugger-than-thou big brother has stolen my gorgeous, sweet, kind, patient, angelic, intelligent, lovely soulmate from me. I'm a whole lot sexier and smarter and better-in-1001-ways than my brother but she's going to the Yule Ball with him! Talk about unfair… sorry, I tend to ramble. Um, rambling aside, please help!_

_Sexy Emerald__ Eyes_

She sighed, recognizing his handwriting and e-mail id.

_Dear, delusional Albus Potter,_

_No woman – aside from Mrs Granger-Weasley, and her taste in men (look at her husband) is questionable at best – has ever found you remotely attractive. You would be best off to remove your eyes – your only good feature – from your face and offer them to __Miss Mason. She might consent to go to the Yule Ball with your detached-from-face eyes, but there is no way that you will be able to convince such a charming young lady to accept you as a ball partner. _

_The Shrink_

**000**

"You know I'm having second thoughts now…"

"Of course you aren't. Hold still."

"Do you think I should do it?" Al turned towards Scorpius beseechingly. "Cut off my eyes and ask Gloria if she'll…"

"No."

"But my eyes are just so…"

"No."

"Well I think I'm old enough to make my own decisions without other people…"

"Sit down."

Al sighed and sank wearily into a velvet pouffe. Slender, delicately-built Rose wasn't intimidating but Scorpius, with his superb Beater's physique – who know followed her everywhere like a lovesick puppy – certainly was. "This," Rose announced grandly from her dressing table (she'd managed to get the boys into the Ravenclaw girls' dormitories, exercising her mother's superb brilliance for perhaps the third time in her life), "is called the Fungal Makeover." She picked up a blue plastic bowl filled with slimy green tentacles in a pool of water.

Al shuddered.

"I," Rose continued, now picking up two cucumber slices and handing them over to Scorpius, "Have used undiluted Bubotuber Puss, doxy droppings, spurious dragon blood, Mandrake leaves and Firewhiskey to prepare this rare and exotic mixture which shall leave your dull skin glowing and fresh like a newborn baby's."

"As long as it works," Al said darkly, closing his gorgeous eyes and allowing Scorpius to slap the cucumber slices over them.

**000**

"I'm green." Al calmly took the little mirror Rose nervously handed him and with equal calmness slammed down with such violence that the glass shattered. Rose squeaked in terror and jumped back while Scorpius stopped smiling and began to eye Al warily.

"I'm sure I can fix this!" Rose said earnestly. "Scorpy – hand me that book over there. No, not that one – second shelf, the brown one, Al just stay calm…"

"I'm green." Al stood up and strode over to the bathroom.

"You'll be back to normal in a few minutes," Rose said consolingly, flipping quickly through her book. "I take full responsibility for my actions…"

Al sauntered over to the threshold and pulled out his wand. "I'm green," he stated for the third time. "Goodbye cruel world."

And then three things happened in quick succession – Scorpius let out a yell and tackled Al who had already began to mouth a spell. A jet of green light struck the wooden dressing table and before anyone could do anything it had burst into flames. "We're going to die!" bawled Rose who had unfortunately inherited neither her father's bravado nor her mother's courage-in-the-face-of-fire. She dropped her book and without even trying to keep up the appearance that the daughter of two hardened war heroes ought to have kept opened the door and ran for her life.

"Oh my god," Scorpius whispered and then promptly fainted. There were only two things in the world that could make him faint – mice and fire.

Instead of panicking and generally being inept as one would have expected from Al the Pansy, he only sighed, whipped out his wand and yelled, "_Aguamenti_!" The fire was out in an instant. "No way to commit suicide in peace," he muttered, debating how long it would take him to reach the Astronomy Tower and dramatically throw himself off. His stomach growled and he sighed, deciding that it wasn't worth the effort – if he died that would leave Gloria without a protector, in the clutches of the libidinous, traitorous toerag… Forgetting that his face was green he began to tow Scorpius slowly out of the dormitory with a singular lack of grace that would have made his dear, lumbering father proud.

**000**

"You're… green."

"Yes," Al said coldly. "You have a problem with that?"

Rose looked like she was about to say something but thankfully didn't. "It's um… eye-catching. Very you." She surveyed Al carefully – from the top of his forest-green spikes to the tip of his long, sea-green nose, his baggy olive-green cargos, jade-colored shirt and yellowish-green trainers. "Quick makeover."

Al ran a finger through his forest-green spikes. "I'm thinking about getting a tattoo too – _June 5 _sounds like a good idea."

"Oh… why?"

"It's World Environment Day."

"Oh. Oh. Al – do you think that you should…"

"No."

"But I think you really need medical assistance…"

"No."

"Al don't be ridiculous, this isn't the behavior of a sane individual of the biotic community…"

"For the last time, Rose, I'm not writing to the Shrink again!"

**000**

"Hey Al, wait up!"

Albus tuned slowly around, hardly daring to believe his ears. A tall girl with long red hair and a tight white T-shirt that proudly proclaimed "Greenpeace – Save the Whales!" was running after him. "Yeah, Gloria?" he said, trying to be casual. "What's up?"

She grinned down at him through limpid hazel eyes and placed a light, butterfly kiss on the tip of his green nose. "I think you and I should go to the Yule Ball together, don't you? Get to know more about the earth, so as to speak, we live on… get better acquainted with eachother… personally I think green is just about the sexiest color in the universe."

"So… so you're not going with James?" Al whispered, ready to melt into a puddle of glop.

"He's nice – in a jocky way," Gloria said dismissively, "But he's not really acquainted with his earthly side… I was hoping you could teach me a bit more about it…"

**000**

**kingjock: ****wat's up al? heard ur going out with gloria**

**SexyGreenEyes: You did? Oh my god, I can explain everything, I'm really, really sorry I stole your bird please don't beat me up, please.**

**kingjock: it's OK. she dumped me. ****1 tip if u want a great nite with her – use biodegradable condoms. she told me they turn her on. **


End file.
